00:00People think about the older show, Pa and Ma are kind of perfect in Laura's eyes and sometimes in
00:05the audience's eyes. Here they're allowed to have flaws, regrets, failures. You have to open your
00:11mind or we're all gonna drown. What you do is dangerous. It's dangerous! Look what can happen
00:18even when you're stone cold sober! How important was it for you guys to be able to inhabit these
00:23characters as three-dimensional people? To me that's what made it so fun and so nice to do,
00:29you know it's I like that Caroline is a human who's flawed and complex. That's the most fun type
00:38of character to play, not just like a stock character of a mother or a wife. She is those
00:45things but sort of multitudinous within those things and I think that's what's exciting. I do
00:51love that about Charles is that he makes plenty of mistakes but he wants to be a good man. He
00:58wants
00:59to be a good husband and he wants to be a good father, a good member of the community and
01:03I admire that in anyone and so to be able to play someone like that and someone who
01:10takes responsibility for times that he's incorrect and makes mistakes and I think that's a nice person to
01:17to play and a good example to live up to and something that I really enjoy doing. Look, the whole
01:26show
01:27to play someone nice in a show that is nice but that doesn't shy away from inconvenience and mistakes
01:35and problems, that's a real privilege. I was really shocked about how beautiful the landscape is in this
01:39show and how you're so exposed to the elements of so many outdoor shots and scenes. What was it like
01:44to film
01:45on location and where were you filming? We filmed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, beautiful Winnipeg, Manitoba,
01:52Manitoba and it was amazing. Every day was truly as beautiful as it looks in the show. I mean,
01:59you know and we're really riding a wagon into the sunset and that's us on the wagon doing that and
02:07each day that we got to kind of be within the prairie and sort of feel that I was we
02:13were just saying
02:13how I would like look over sometimes between takes. We'd be like, where is Luke? I can't find him. He
02:18had
02:18like dragged a rocking chair out by a river just to like sit by the river and take it all
02:23in.
02:25But I don't know, it really adds to the whole experience I think. Yeah, I mean you know and
02:30Crosby and the girls do incredibly well because they're wearing corsets and 8,000 layers of clothing
02:37and it's very, very hot out there some days. Get the bugs away though. Get the bugs away.
02:43But yeah, just being in those elements as an actor, selfishly it makes the job so much easier
02:49because you know, you can feel a breeze on your face, you can feel a bug, you can feel the
02:53sunshine,
02:53you can feel the cool breeze. Being on a stage is kind of stale and you can get tired easily
02:59on a stage
03:00because there's no atmosphere, literally no atmosphere. And so I always prefer, even if it might be
03:05uncomfortable, I much prefer to be out there. And as Crosby said, the views we get, I remember
03:10sitting there going, they better be getting this on camera because it's absolutely beautiful.
03:15Yeah. And it's funny, in the first episode I have a conversation with Edwards and he has this line
03:23which is, have you ever seen such a sky? And we still say it to each other. Have you ever
03:29seen
03:30such a sky? Every day out there we just go, have you ever seen such a sky? It's so true.
03:34It is
03:35absolutely stunning out there. It's a beautiful place to go to work. And, and we're just fortunate
03:41that the people are just as beautiful as the place that we get to work with. So it's wonderful.
03:45Music is so important to the story. I'm curious, Luke, did you know how to fiddle before this project?
03:59How is your fiddling? And what was it like? How did that help you guys, all the songs bond
04:03the family with, you know, together? I'm going to leave you on a little secret here, Megan.
04:08I still don't know how to fiddle. Um, no, I certainly, I certainly wanted to,
04:14I wanted to look as capable as possible. You know, the reality is I, I, there's no way I could
04:19learn how to play a fiddle like par in, in three and a half weeks. Um, but, but one thing
04:25I wanted
04:26to do, I wanted it to be as close. I wanted to get it as close as possible. It's something
04:29I
04:29stressed quite a bit about in the first season was, do I actually look like I'm doing this? But, um,
04:35I figured out like what I needed to do for it to look like I was playing the fiddle. I
04:39knew that like
04:39the bow strokes were my key. And if I could get them in the right spot, I think it would,
04:45it would,
04:45it would do what we needed to do. And then on top of that, it's, as you say, it's the
04:49atmosphere
04:50of these scenes with the fiddle. It's like, this is all they had. This was their entertainment. They,
04:54they loved singing as a family. They loved the music. Yeah. This was their TV at the end of the
04:59day.
05:00Alice and Skywalker who play Laura and Mary, all they do is sing all day, every day with their
05:05incredible angelic voices. And so having them just singing along and loving music is it's,
05:11it's who they are anyway. So it's kind of true life. It's, uh, it's us kind of like dancing along
05:18and laughing while, while Alice and Skywalker sing beautiful songs every day. I wrote the books
05:23growing up. I knew the history and yet I was still surprised at the very last episode that they do
05:29leave the homestead and go further north to, you know, the banks of Plum Creek, if you will.
05:47I felt emotional watching you guys ride, drive away from the cabin. I can't imagine how emotional
05:52was it for you guys to leave the season one set behind. Remember the day? That was crazy. Our, our
06:00day we left the house. Remember during rehearsal, we went in, uh, onto the location before we had
06:07on for a rehearsal before we'd even gotten dressed. And I was weeping the whole time. Cause I was like,
06:15Oh, we're, and I didn't know that I would have that reaction. You know, it was just, but it, it
06:19was,
06:21um, it's, it was like a little meta of a moment also, because it's like saying goodbye to this
06:26house that did so much for them. And for me, it was like this opportunity that did so much for
06:31me
06:31kind of felt. And we spent so much time at that house, um, on set, you know, we were out
06:36on the
06:37prairie and that was our place where we would sit out of the sunshine in between takes. It was,
06:43it was our little home in the middle of nowhere. It's so well done. It was, it was a real
06:48house. It
06:48was completely legitimate. Like it was a legitimate log cabin that was expertly crafted. And yeah,
06:55it was really sad to, to leave it. And then, you know, I remember that scene of us in the
07:00wagon,
07:00it was just like one in a million shot that where the sun was just perfect and the clouds were
07:07just,
07:07and the colors were just right. And this, and it all came together and we kind of knew we only
07:12really
07:12had one go at it and it all, and I'm there with the wagon to make sure he's driving straight
07:18and
07:18the course is good. And you know, so we just kept going for like, it was like 10 minutes.
07:24We were in the wagon. Just like, we just kept going until someone, I think there was a radio,
07:29but we didn't quite hear, but we just, we literally rode off into the sunset for the last shot for
07:33minutes and minutes.
